


give me shelter (or show me heart)

by cinderfell



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (towards the end at least), Domestic Fluff, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Chroma Conclave, brief mentions of Episode 80 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 12:12:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9270668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderfell/pseuds/cinderfell
Summary: Sleep is often unkind to both of them, even after the danger has long since passed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is sort of a companion piece to ["a moment of your time"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8876809), which is a much more domestic fluff-focused fic about vex taking care of percy. this is the other half of that, with more of a focus on hurt and comfort. it's not necessary to read that one first, but they do technically go together!
> 
> title comes from "only love" by ben howard.

He’s trying to read with her sleeping in his lap by the fireplace in his room—their room now—when he first notices.

Her whole body trembles. Percy reaches down to touch one of her hands, surprised to find them so cold when she’s so close to the fire. He sets his book off to the side and moves to cup it in both of his own, fingers curling around hers.

He worries about her a lot. He tries his best to ignore the weight that sits in his gut whenever he sees her struggling, but it’s hard. He knows she often feels the same way with him. People don't go through what they did and come out unscathed; it's only natural for them to be more than a little damaged, as hard as it is to see and feel.

Part of him wants to wake her, pry her out of whatever’s hurting her and cradle her against his chest until she’s better. The other part of him knows what it’s like to be suddenly thrown from a nightmare, to wake up clawing and kicking and fighting for air; blurring the lines between nightmare and reality is never a good idea in his experience. So instead he just shifts, trying to make her more comfortable while keeping one of his hands on hers.

He considers picking his book back up, balancing it on the palm of his hand and just flicking through the pages with his thumb. He’s rather good at it (Vex has fallen asleep clutching one of his hands in a vice-grip more times than he can count) but he also knows that with her shaking on his lap he’ll find no interest in its words.

Instead he runs his free hand over her shoulders, brushing a dark strand of hair away from her neck. Vex stills briefly, and he worries that he woke her accidentally before her breathing deepens again with a tremble. He exhales slowly, hand returning to its gentle roaming. It slides down over her back, thumb idly rubbing circles against her shirt as it goes.

Wherever she is, Percy hopes she can feel him even just a little bit; hopes she knows he’s with her.

Maybe half an hour later she lets out a sharp gasp that makes him jump, her body arching and her eyes fluttering open. His fingers reflexively squeeze hers, hoping it’ll calm her down. If he didn’t know her better—if he’d never seen her fight up close—he wouldn’t have recognized the way her hands desperately try to release an arrow from a bow that isn’t there.

“Shh, Vex,” he hushes as he pulls her hand up to his mouth, pressing a kiss against the back of it. Her eyes, wild with fear, widen as they met his. After a moment those dark brown eyes seem to soften as she recognizes him, recognizes where they are, and her muscles visibly relax as she sinks back down against his lap.

She’s quiet for a minute, carefully avoiding his eyes. Then she says, simply, “Hi.”

“Hello,” he murmurs, hand still clutching hers. He gives it another reassuring squeeze and she immediately squeezes back. He gives her time to process before he speaks again, time to reel her mind back from wherever she just was and back into the safety of their bedroom. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She laughs a breathy laugh and his heart aches at the way it catches slightly. “Darling, it’s fine.” She pauses, pushing a smile onto her face that they both know is fake. “I’m fine.”

“Vex’ahlia,” he sighs, her name heavy on his tongue. Her smile wavers slightly at his tone. “You know that I love you.” The smile cracks a little bit more. “And you know that I’m never going to think you’re weak or unworthy for having nightmares. I would hardly be one to judge when it comes to nightmares, anyways.”

The smile slides off her face, her lips settling into a thin line as she presses them together. Vex looks up at him in silence, and truth be told it’s almost unsettling the way she just stares up at him with those dark, intuitive eyes of hers. Wordlessly she lifts herself halfway out of his lap and props herself up on her elbow, gazing at the fire. He lets her. There’s no point in pushing her into talking, no point in pushing her into anything that she doesn’t really want to do. He’s smart enough to know better and he respects her enough to accept whatever she chooses. Gods know he understands how hard talking about things like this can be.

Finally, she speaks.

“It was a lot of things.” A long, weary sigh escapes her lips. “A lot of it was just a big blur. A lot of blood. A lot of screaming. There were dragons, so I think it picked apart pieces from the initial Conclave attack and the siege and stitched them together into something horrible. I saw a lot of that lair under the city, what with all of us going up and down constantly in that burning heat and me and Scanlan… actually going down. But that wasn’t all. I saw bits and pieces of other things: Byroden when Vax and I first returned home and then almost losing him at the feast... Saundor pulling me apart at the seams in front of all of you.” She hesitates before continuing. “Glintshore.”

With that she trails off, dark eyes glazing over.

“Vex?” He says her name softly, nudging her arm and sending a jolt through her body as she seems to come back to herself. The hand on her arm slowly drops down to the hand he isn’t already holding, swiping across her knuckles with his thumb.

Percy knows nightmares, knows them well enough that they could be considered old friends. If nothing else, they were always there where everything else was uncertain. A point of stability before Vox Machina, before Cassandra. Before Vex. They’re less frequent now, but when they creep up on him on bad nights they hit hard. Vex’s nightmares come and go, from what he can tell. And she always tries to hide them from him as if she’s scared to worry him with them. He wishes he could say he wasn’t guilty of the same on occasion, but it’s a bad habit they share.

She slowly slides back down to the floor, resting her head back into his lap with her face away from him. The softer angles of her face glow in the light of the fireplace, her skin practically golden.

“What can I do to help?”

It takes a moment for her to reply (and for a second he thinks she’s not going to at all; that she’s just going to shut down, put on one of her masks that they’ve both been trying so hard to do away with in private) but when she does, her voice is very small. “Can you play with my hair?”

Percy’s taken aback. That’s… not the request he was expecting. But it’s simple. Simple and a lot easier to do than ‘make the nightmares stop’ or anything of the like. He sets a hand on her head and smooths down her hair, a soft sigh floating out from between her lips. “Of course, dear.”

Undoing the band holding her braid together, he pulls it around his wrist before combing his fingers through it quickly, less for her pleasure and more to actually get it untangled. With her hair now loose and spread across her shoulders, the tips of his fingers gently tangle into the hair at her scalp before slowly working down through her dark waves. Vex lets out a long breath, and when he reaches back up to the top of her head to repeat the motion she presses up against his hand. He obliges, letting his blunt nails scratch lightly against her the way she usually does to him.

Ever so slowly, the lingering tension in her body fades as he works his way through her hair. Her breathing becomes more shallow, and if he couldn’t see the gleam of her brown eyes reflecting the fireplace he would almost think she’d fallen asleep. Long after she relaxes, his fingers continue their dance. It’s hard doing anything besides just running his fingers through her hair over and over when she still has a hold on his other hand, but he tries his best. He’s partially through a surprisingly decent braid, if he does say so himself, with a couple locks of hair when she speaks for the first time since she’d gone silent ten minutes ago.

“What do you dream about, Percy?” Her question is so quiet he almost misses it, his fingers pausing. Well, he dreams about a lot of things. Many of them not good. Many of them very much in-line with her own bad dreams. She seems to sense his hesitation, quietly adding, “What do you dream about when it’s not bad?”

Hmm. Well, that narrows things down.

“I dream of building things a lot,” he admits, fingers resuming their braiding. “That’s where I get a lot of my designs. Not all of them are awful like my guns. It’s where I got the idea for your brother’s raven skull brooch and your arrows.”

“I do like my arrows,” she says softly, which makes the corners of his lips pull up at the corners.

“I know you do, darling.” He finishes off her braid and runs a finger down through it, untangling it slowly and starting again. She seems to find some sort of comfort in that pattern. “I dream about people a lot. Sometimes I dream about my family.” Her fingers tighten around his and he almost would’ve laughed were it not for the fact that it would probably startle her. He’s finally pulled her back into a state of calmness, the last thing he wants is to set her on edge again. It’s just… funny. It’s funny how he’s trying to comfort her and yet she still tries to be the one giving it at the slightest mention of his family. It’s been a sore subject for a long time, which she knows, but with her it’s always been easier to talk about. “I relive my mother teaching us fencing when we were younger. She was a stickler for proper form and continues that even in my dreams, apparently. Other times it’s Cassandra sneaking into my workshop and running away with things I need for tinkering. Sometimes she’s a child and sometimes she’s as old as she is now. Recently I dreamed about the two of us sitting under the Sun Tree and just talking, which was nice. A little on the boring side, but pleasant nonetheless.”

“Sometimes it’s Vox Machina,” he continues, undoing his second braid and now resuming a gentle motion of running his fingers through her hair in a way that feels more like petting, something she’s fond of doing to him. Regardless, she obviously enjoys it. “I dream of Keyleth helping me tinker. Other times I see an eagle perched above me or a deer and know it’s her. I once had a dream about her, Pike, and Grog challenging me to a drinking contest and me passing out so hard from all the alcohol that I woke up.” She chuckles at that. “Your brother is rarer, but sometimes I feel him. It’s like he’s hanging at the edges of my dreams, moving through them like he does with shadows in the waking world. And Scanlan… I hear Scanlan more than I see him. I hear his laughter, his silly limericks, his seemingly endless array of instruments that he has on him at all times.”

“And…” he trails off, tucking a lock of hair behind one of her pointed ears and letting his fingertips linger. “I dream of you.”

The sweetest of laughs echoes through the room as she shifts, rolling over so she can look up at him. She’s smiling now, a real smile, and it brings one to his lips too. “Do you now?’

“I do.”

She cocks an eyebrow at him. “How many of them are dirty?”

“Enough of them,” he replies simply, earning him another laugh from the woman in his lap.

Vex clutches a hand over her heart dramatically, feigning shock. “Why, Lord de Rolo! You scandalize me!”

He rolls his eyes at her, hand trailing down by her shoulders and idly wrapping a dark piece of hair around his fingers once, twice, three times. “I’m not even sure if it’s _possible_ to scandalize you, my dear.”

The look she gives him is incredibly fond. “Well, I’m sure you’re only doing the _loveliest_ of things to me in them.”

“Just the loveliest,” he agrees softly, letting the strand of hair unfurl from around his fingers. “Gods, you’re everywhere in my dreams, though.”

“Not just the dirty ones?” She teases.

“You know I think I higher of you than that,” he says with another eye roll and she chuckles. “You’ve found your way into every corner of my mind, truly.”

Vex smiles up at him with unimaginable softness then, quiet as she seems to wait for him to elaborate.

Well, if she wants details.

“You and your bow are everywhere, obviously. Your fingers when they release an arrow.” He squeezes them. “The way you squint when you’re trying to line up a shot. That look you always get when you hit it, because _of course_ you hit it, you’re Vex’ahlia.”

She lets out a small laugh.

“Sometimes it’s you haggling. I love watching you haggle. It’s like…” he struggles to find the right word. “It’s like magic, honestly. As bewitching as watching Keyleth or Scanlan weave arcane spells, if not more so because it’s _not_ magic. It’s just you.”

“Just me,” she repeats softly, her thumb now rubbing patterns against the side of his hand.

“Just you.”

He tries his best to paint all the ways she finds him in his dreams with words so she can understand, watching as her eyelids begin to flutter and feeling rather pleased with himself. Keyleth always tells him that he has horrible bedside manner (and he agrees with her for the most part) but with Vex he’s always been able to find the words that she needs to hear. That said, he’d really prefer if she didn’t trap him on the floor for the rest of the night.

“Darling,” he says as he brushes the pad of his thumb across her cheek. She blinks rapidly in response, eyes slightly unfocused as his touch brings her back out of sleep. “Perhaps it would be best if we move to the bed for the night.”

She hums. “I’m quite comfortable here.”

Percy snorts at that. “Well, of course _you_ are.”

She’s practically using him as a pillow. He, on the other hand, has been sitting cross-legged for nearly an hour and a half. As lovely as he finds spending time with her like this (despite the rather unhappy middle part), that doesn’t change the fact that his legs are full of pins and needles and his back is beginning to ache.

She reaches up and runs a finger along his collarbone, sending shivers down his spine, and she smirks. “What if I just don’t let you up? What if we just spend the night down here instead?”

“Then I imagine I’ll be shaken awake in the middle of the night so you can complain about it being cold because the fire went out,” he replies dryly, unable to keep a smile off his face.

She pouts at him, letting the hand that was tracing its way across his collarbone fall back to her chest. “You don’t know that.”

“Vex’ahlia, I know you very well. That is _exactly_ what will happen and you know it.”

After a moment she rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

When she sits up he takes the opportunity to wrap his free arm around her shoulders and touch his lips to hers. It’s soft and sweet and feels like coming home; a sense of belonging exactly where he is, as if by her side is exactly where he needs to be. She smiles against the kiss, leaning forward and pressing all of her weight against him until he nearly topples backwards with her on top of him. On another night, he’d let it happen. Let her shift things a more playful direction. Not tonight, though.

He helps her stand and they steady themselves against each other after hours of laying down. Percy tries to shake the tingling numbness in the hand she’s been holding onto, shifting her hand to his other one while flexing and stretching his fingers to try to bring back feeling in them.

The sheets of their bed are warm and welcoming as he slides under on his side, with Vex kicking her pants off before climbing in next to him. When she slides her feet between his he lets out a sharp yelp, “ _Fuck_ , Vex!”

She laughs at him as he tries to pull away from her freezing cold skin, hooking her feet around his ankles and securing herself against him. “What is it, darling?”

“We’ve been away from the fire for two minutes! How are your feet already that cold?”

Vex hums contentedly, pressing her whole body up against him now and laughing louder when he tries to recoil as he realizes that _all_ of her is cold. “I don’t know, but the quickest solution to this problem seems to be you warming me up.”

Percy makes an exaggerated huff, resigning himself to his fate and allowing her to wrap her arms around him and secure him in place. “Sometimes I wonder if this relationship is really just you using me as a heat source.”

She presses a kiss just below his earlobe. “Oh, it absolutely is. But that’s romance, Percival.”

“Yes,” he agrees fondly, reaching up to cover her left hand with his. “Yes, it is.”

He feels her snuggle in closer to his back and sigh contentedly once she gets comfortable and he can’t hold back the smile that tugs at the corners of his lips. He knows what she’s feeling now: the safety of being close to each other. It wraps around them like an extra blanket, warm and familiar. Compared to the nightmares from earlier, he can only hope that this is a comforting shift.

He’s on the verge of slipping into dreams (hopefully of the more pleasant kind) when he hears her speak, her voice like a line reeling him back from sleep.

“Percy?” Vex is quiet, muffled against his back. She sounds almost hesitant again. Shy, perhaps?

“Yes, dear?” He cranes his neck to try to look back at her, finding only the top of her head as she buries her face against him.

“I’m just really glad you’re here.” There’s a slight quiver on her voice that he almost misses.

He squeezes her hand, letting his fingertips run across the plane of skin just above the knuckle of her fourth finger before he lets her twine their fingers together. “I’m glad you’re here too.”

His dreams are filled with designs of a different kind.


End file.
